


Souvenirs (Rivamika Week 2014)

by alienheartattack (Sanneke)



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: F/M, clean smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-04
Updated: 2015-01-04
Packaged: 2018-03-05 09:02:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3114011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sanneke/pseuds/alienheartattack
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After each expedition, Squad Levi pairs off to check each other for injuries. Mikasa is paired up with Levi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Souvenirs (Rivamika Week 2014)

The latest expedition is a success, in that only a tenth of the Survey Corps comes back broken and bloodied, stacked like firewood on a horse-drawn cart to be shipped back to their parents or, for most of them, burned over an anonymous pyre. As seems to be custom these days, Squad Levi trudges on horseback behind the corpse cart as it rolls through the gates of Karanes. This time, five years after the disastrous 57th Expedition, no one save a few clustered fanatics and vagrants greets them as they wend their way back to base.

The squad has a routine, almost a tradition at this point, that they check one another for injuries upon their return. Even a secretly fractured finger can spell the difference between life and death: two years earlier, a new recruit couldn’t operate his flare gun and the Aberrant Titan that he had spotted killed him and most of his squad. So upon return to the barracks they all strip to their underwear and pair off, running firm hands over bruised limbs, applying ointments and bandages. 

Mikasa returns to Karanes liberally splashed with mud by a Titan that ran by her (quickly dispatched by Jean, assisted by Connie) and so she decides to brave the somehow constantly frigid water in the showers before she allows anyone to touch her. When she returns, a towel wrapped around her dark hair, everyone is already inspecting or being inspected: Eren pinching the flesh on Jean’s fingers as Jean scowls and mutters that he’s being needlessly rough, Armin prodding at a apple-sized bruise on Connie’s ribs, Sasha dabbing at a cut on Historia’s forehead with a damp rag.

"Mikasa," Levi calls, poking his head into the room from his office. "Over here." He inclines his head toward the office, motioning for her to come in. She does so, closing the door behind her. He is still dressed, still in his harness even, while she wears an old pair of uniform pants and a clean shirt open over her bra. She suddenly feels very self-conscious about the skin she is exposing, the strand of wet hair that rests against the side of her nose. "Injuries?" he barks.

She swallows, then says, “Bruise on my right hip. Some scrapes on the same side, both from when I grazed that tree. A bit sore from the ride back to camp. One of the strap marks on my legs is chafing pretty bad, too. I’m concerned it may get infected.”

"Mm," he grunts, his face a cold mask. "On the desk."

Mikasa sighs and divests herself of her clothing, folding them loosely and placing them atop the desk, then hopping up and taking a seat. Levi crouches down and takes her right foot in his hands. She always seems to notice the size of his hands, how large they are for a man of his height and build. His grip is a soft pressure around her toes, his skin cool and smooth. He works upward, pressing the flesh around her tarsals, then up through the bones of her ankles before switching to the other foot.

"Big toe on your left foot feels fractured. I’ll put a splint on it after you check me."

Mikasa chuckles. “That’s not from the expedition. I stubbed it on my bunk before we left. I shouldn’t have been walking around in the dark.”

"The hell were you doing that for?" Levi asks, running his fingers up her shins.

"Call of nature." Mikasa looks away and prays that he does not ask her what nature was calling for, as she has seen him do to some of their comrades.

"Up," he says, getting to his feet as she hops down from the desk and stands straight before him, her arms at her sides. "Arms up." He drops back down to his knees, traces the toughened pink skin where the straps of her three-dimensional moving gear have rubbed her skin raw. "Where is it?"

"Left thigh, insi—"

"I see it." Levi inclines his head to get a good look at the wound on her inner thigh. He has seen this before: the thin abraded flesh, worn away from the pressure of straps supporting her weight. He pokes one finger near where her skin has broken, close enough to coax a drop of thin watery blood out of it, but far enough that he is still touching freshly showered skin and not the filth of her open wound.

Mikasa sucks in a pained breath. “Careful!” she snaps reflexively. Levi looks up at her, raises one eyebrow. “Please be careful, Captain,” she corrects herself. “It hurts.”

"You can handle it," he replies coolly. "But I’ll bandage it up for you. I have to ground you for three days, per regulations. No harness, no 3DMG until this heals."

"Shit," she sighs. "Okay."

Levi shifts to her right side to investigate her other wounds. A swath of Mikasa’s right hip is a deep red, darkening to purple. He pushes the waistband of her underwear beneath the curve of her hip. Beneath his touch, he feels Mikasa’s skin tighten into gooseflesh. Her breathing has gotten slightly heavier as well. He has long thought that the girl — although he cannot reasonably call her such a thing, not at her age — has had a crush on him, somewhere mixed within her former burning hatred for him. She is a presence near him, always standing close whenever they have to review strategy, fighting in tandem with him, side by side. But she rarely speaks to him directly, not unless she is prompted or it is absolutely necessary. When he looks at her, she looks away, but when his back is to her he can feel her eyes on him.

He should know: he has done the same to her for a long time.

He presses against the bruise on her hip, eliciting a hiss, then rubs his fingertips over the pebbled texture of the scrape that travels alongside it. “Looks fine. It’s shallow. You can put some ointment on the scrape to make it heal faster, but that’s about it. Doesn’t feel like anything is broken.”

"That’s good. I don’t want to be out of my 3DMG any longer than necessary."

Levi makes a satisfied “Hm” noise while he checks her other hip, then gets up to run his hands up the slight knobs of her vertebrae, then around to check her ribs. She has several bruises here, already fading to a sickly yellow. Nothing to be concerned about. Next he takes one of Mikasa’s hands in his own, squeezes her fingers, the long bones of her palm. Her hand is hot under his touch, the palm slightly sweaty. Levi looks up at her as he manipulates her limbs, at her ruddy cheeks, her gaze trained on the half-empty bookshelf off to the side of the room. “You okay?”

"Fine," she blurts a little too soon.

He finishes with her arms, moves behind her to press his hands to her shoulder blades, then up her neck and back around to trace over her collarbone, lingering at the hollow of her throat.

Mikasa takes in a shaky breath. “Captain, she says, her voice breathy. Her dark eyes meet his for a moment, then look away. “This is inappropriate.”

Levi draws his hand away. “Is it inappropriate because you don’t want me to touch you?”

She is silent for a few moments before she gives her head a small shake. “I want you to. But people will talk.”

"How badly?" he asks, drawing closer to her. His fingertips stroke up the side of her neck, down her jaw.

"It would certainly ruin my reputation and probably yours—" Mikasa’s words rush out of her mouth before she is cut off.

"No, I mean how badly do you want me to touch you?" Levi asks, cupping her chin.

"Very," she whispers, leaning forward until her lips meet his.

They have both been thinking of this moment for quite some time now, the moment when they would finally do something about five years of glances, of reassuring pats on the back that linger a few moments too long. And the gnarled mystery of their connection, not familial but still somehow deeply intertwined, still with tangled threads they have not been able to tease apart. Perhaps that explains why she has always felt drawn so strongly to him, why he has always felt a deep concern for her even in the days when she glared daggers at him at every turn. He thinks he would prefer the directness of her dark fury to her shyness.

But no matter — she is here now, and her kiss is more smooth and more delicate than he could have ever imagined. Mikasa, to her credit, thinks the same about him, marveling in the hidden softness she has found in a man she assumed had been hardened to his core. As they kiss, his hands rove over her skin, fingering the raised lines of her scars, tracing tenderly the stippled violet borders of her bruises. Levi breaks away from her and moves his lips down her jaw, kissing a trail down her neck. He sucks at her skin, running his teeth against her flesh, and adds another mark to her collection of souvenirs.


End file.
